First important question from this newbie

I'm a commercial printer (for your business cards & flyers, etc). Lately I got quite a few inquiry about 3D printing.

I know we're even related, but we are in people mind when they think of printing. Our industry is in decline, I'd love to explore new services to provide to my business customers.

I found you thru some initial research, and here is my first question to the practitioners:

Size is one of the most important requirement for my application. Could someone save me lots of searching by telling me which model can print with the largest size range?

Thanks

Charles

The most common build surface is 200mm x 200mm (about 8 inches square). The height varies, but most are able to print in the 150 to 200 mm range.

There are other units that offer larger sizes, but as the size increases so do the issues, from frame strength to temperature management.

Thanks, jbernardis

Then perhaps you can easily answer the next question and set me on the right path:

My intention is to build the first one, then give instructions and print parts for fellow printers in my network. As far as objects, we don't know yet, but we will start with the low end, less demanding request from customers.

Of course we want the latest advance, but also practicality. So the next question is: Which model should I use to start research for my DIY project?

If you have more time, please include reasons.

Thanks

Charles

You've got a big learning curve ahead of you Charles. No one is going to be able, or rather no one is going to take the time to explain it all on a forum. You are going to have to do a great deal of research on your own. Start at the Reprap Wiki Incomplete Beginner's Guide. [reprap.org]

If you don't have "maker" type skills, a bit of script programming, electronics, mechanical ability, familiar with computers and having a basic understanding of how the software tool chain works then building for a commercial application is not for you. It takes most new builders a month or two to get the printers to a place where the output is good enough. Some longer, some get frustrated and give up. It might make more sense for you to buy an assembled printer or at least a kit to assemble with some support.

I say this not to discourage you in your quest or from asking questions but there is a great deal to learn and there is a non trivial amount of work that goes into decided what printer to build, sourcing the parts, learning how to build it, learning how to configure and tune it (the most difficult part for many people) then finding a business model that works for what you are doing. Though people use Reprap machines and derivative machines in commercial applications (to a larger extent making parts for other machines) it's based on a DIY culture and as such may not be the best for a business with no 3D printing experience.

Read the Wiki in depth and that will give you an idea of what is required to build, maintain and use Reprap machines. With that knowledge you can then plot your plan of action based on your goals and your experience/expertise at building these sorts of devices.

Let's not make assumptions about my background or skills getting in the way of addressing the question.

My only hope is saving time by making use of the knowledge earned by people going before me. I know all about the Beginner's Guide, so don't let it be a secret. If someone has practical knowledge to tell me which to focus on, which not to waste my time on, then it would be very helpful. Making assumption about my background is not helpful.

So, velasloki, which is it, the Mendel, Prusa or Huxley should I start on without going thru the Beginner's step by step first? A thoughtful and sincere answer would save me much time.

Charles

Since some readers seemed to read a lot more into my post. Let me clarify my intention: I don't rule out buying an assembly kit. All I want to know is which model to focus my research on.

Thanks

Charles

Prusa seems to be the main focus of most people, although there again it is not a simple answer. There is the original prusa, and there are they i2 and i3. The i3 is the latest design, although coming from the original prusa myself, there are things I don't like about the i3 design. I chose instead to be inspired by then i3 but to builkd my own design with some alternate part designs.

Still I would recommend that you start with an established design, get your feet wet and go from there. For me, the interest wasn't in having a printer, by rather then ongoing process of building one. Even though my current printer is working well, I am constantly working on the next generation.

It seems we humans are in for a rough time.

Some readers were ready to offer irrelevant on an obviously specific question - Size. I gave up hope, so went on a Google search, and there somewhere in the cloud, a simple truth popped out:

If you want bigger volume, you want to go with the Prusa.

Thank you jbernardis for a quick answer to my first question. And thank you Google for having the answer simply, without injecting the absurdity of us humans.

Charles

charles_2008 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> So, velasloki, which is it, the Mendel, Prusa or
> Huxley should I start on without going thru the
> Beginner's step by step first? A thoughtful and
> sincere answer would save me much time.


The community does not exist to save you time. It's to provide the resources so you can make an informed decision based on your needs.

jbernardis - you beat my post by a fraction of a second. But you did not beat Google.

With that, I feel more comfortable with moving on.

Thanks

@vegasloki - So what is your usefulness in society? Again, don't make assumption about the existence reason for the community.

If you make a third wrong assumption in a day, I have to give you a big fat F and send you home.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/31/2013 09:49PM by charles_2008.

Quote
charles_2008
I gave up hope, so went on a Google search, and there somewhere in the cloud, a simple truth popped out:

If you want bigger volume, you want to go with the Prusa.

I have no idea how you came up with this "simple truth" because that's preposterous.

The MendelMax 2 in its default configuration already has a bigger build volume than a standard Prusa, be it i2 or i3. And the Lulzbot TAZ has an even bigger build volume than the MM2. There are a few other printers out there with bigger print volume than those two.

Here's a blog post which provides a graph rating printers on their build envelope. It's from last April so it may already be outdated, because things move fast in the 3D printing world. [blog.cubehero.com]

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/01/2013 01:10AM by NormandC.

As a newcomer to 3D, I have been lurking here for a while, reading a lot, asking a few questions, and then making decisions based on the limited knowledge I've managed to put together.

I've seen very little mention of the printer I am going to be making soon, the Delta Pi, very similar in some respects to the Rostock, but using lower cost materials, primarily in the area of the masts, and from what I have seen of the design, it should be possible to upscale without too much pain.

I have also been looking at some of the XY concepts, and have some ideas there, but they are not going to see the light of day until I have chance to test them out, if they work as I think they will, it could be interesting.

There are 2 different directions here, the first is that the OP wants a commercial option, which I can understand, and have some affinity with, and many of the regular posters here are not looking per se at commercial options, but are exploring the potential of 3D printing for hobby use, and/or as an intellectual challenge for development, and while those 2 directions are not exclusive, they are not going in the same direction, for a number of valid reasons.

Commercial users are expecting a certain level of repeatability, quality and reliability, hobbyists, experimenters and developers are also looking for good results, but often in a different direction, and the result is often a means to an end, rather than the end.

So, for the OP, a lot is going to depend on the expectations of your customers, and the time and effort that you individually want to put into making 3D work for you, the way you need it. For sure, it is NOT a case of going out and ordering an off the shelf printer from the likes of Ricoh, having it delivered, spending half a day with the rep to sort out the specifics of the machine and it's productive, not unless you want to spend a lot of money on a top end commercial machine, and from your comments, that's not the direction you are looking at.

My conclusions, for what they are worth, the 3D hardware market is developing very fast, but as is often the case, the feedback of information as to HOW it is developing is often sparse. The other issue is that experiementers are not necessarily publishing for others to copy, so the documentation, if there is any, is sometimes sparse, so following their example can at times be challenging, and require either a lot of questions, or a lot of experimenting, or both.

The software is also evolving at a rapid pace, and the same is true there, if you are prepared to spend the time and effort of keeeping close to the changes, you will make progress, but the exact pace of progress will on occasions be frustrating, and getting the result you and more importantly your customers want may not prove to be too easy. If yiu have good software development skills, it will be easier, but if you are dependent on the original developer taking on board the specific issues that are causing you pain, that may not be their priority, which may stall your progress for a while, or you may have to find an alternative package that can do what you need. The next issue is that some software is freeware, but some is not, and CAD software can be very expensive to get a licence for.

The firmware for the micro processors is mostly freeware, but will require some very specific skills to understand and configure to your specific printer, and materials, and unfortunately, it IS that specific, there are so many variety of printer, skills and quality of production, and hot end that extrudes the material, at the Reprap level, a "standard" printer is hard to define, even now, many are very similar, but very few indeed are identical.

I would love to be earning something from 3D printing, but I have to recognise that to do so is going to take a lot of my time and experience in order to arrive at a point where I will be happy to let my end product out to a customer,

To make 3D work, the skills needed to succeed at the Reprap type machine level will be various,

A good background in mechanical engineering, with a well developed diagnostic ability will be essential.
A reasonable understanding of modern electronics and micro processors is also going to be called for.
An ability to understand low level computer programming, and the concept of version control and management of the source code involved will be required.
The ability to use a number of different packages to arrive at the end result will be needed, designing the object, then converting it to a suitable format for printing, then running the process that slices it into chunks that the printer of your choice can digest and reproduce accurately, and that then introduces the issue of being able to fine tune the printer in combination with the software to produce the expected or required result, and these 2 results are sometimes very hard to arrive at.

The right materials, and how to "stage" them on the printer becomes a factor.

I guess what I'm saying, in a number of areas, reprap may not be the right direction to go in if you have to have a dependable and repeatable output in a short timescale, and your best option may well be a commercial printer, which is not the focus or aim of the reprap community, if you have the time, skills and resources to spend on developing some possibly interesting and useful skills that should result in being able to earn extra income from 3D printing, then Reprap may well be for you, but be prepared for some hurdles along the way.

I'm going to be challenged by getting the Delta Pi up and running very soon, and to add to the pressure, I have to do it on the lowest possible budget, which is probably the worst of both worlds, but that said, it should provide the stimulus I need to try and get out of a dire economic situation that has almost destroyed the domestic economy of Ireland. Time will tell.

Not sure if this will help, but it's my response to a thread that is close to where I am at right now.

Cheers

---

Shore, if twas easy, we'd all be doin it

Irish Steve

I can see it's true to your own situation. But listen, let me say one more time, don't make any assumption about strangers' background or ability.

If you have relevant information to specific question then say it. If not, then there is no need to say anything.

@normandC

I can't believe coming here looking for advice and find myself giving out lectures. Let me spell out the context so it will be more specific to you. Some were helpful enough to take the time and interpret my intention correctly despite the language ambiguity; then there are those who were lazy thinkers who just want to project what little they have in their mind meaninglessly and fruitlessly onto others.

Look at the options here: http:_//reprap.org/wiki/RepRap_Options

Then tell me which has the largest build volume. That is the specific question I am asking. Give a straight answer, then you can add on other complication yada yada tangential stuff...

What do you hope to achieve here, if you can not deal with something as straight forward as this?

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/01/2013 08:29AM by charles_2008.

If a large buildspace is what you need then maybe you should contact these guys: [www.d-shape.com]
They talk about metres rather than centimetres. Not sure they do plastic though.

Charles, are you for real or what?

In your first post this is what you were asking:

Quote
charles_2008
Could someone save me lots of searching by telling me which model can print with the largest size range?

Now since you're good at giving lectures, would you please explain to me how my answer to you was not relevant???

You've been dismissive and belligerent with everyone who took time to answer you! Are you that much of a dick? Are you stupid enough to think people will still want to help you with that lousy attitude of yours?

Man I know we see all kind of people on forums, but arrogant pricks like you are pretty rare.

Quote
charles_2008
[reprap.org]

That link only includes a fraction of the printers available. Many existing printers are not mentioned. Stop being a hard ass and look for the 2 printers I mentioned, for a start.

After that, how about you do your own homework...

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/01/2013 10:43AM by NormandC.

Thanks for the pointer, but I don't really need it that big. Besides, I'm interested in modifying the RepRap for commercial application at the low end, as an exploratory tool to fellow commercial printing companies. As you know, paper printing has nothing in common with all this, so the owners and staff need to familiarize themselves with other upstream and downstream aspects of the production cycle as well.

So the largest option with the open source design fits my purpose better.

Best

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/01/2013 10:49AM by charles_2008.

@NormandC

If you have nothing useful, helpful or purposeful to say you should not raise your hand. This basic rule is good in the classroom, the work place, and so should be in an online forum.

Don't misbehave because no one spanks you online.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/01/2013 11:05AM by charles_2008.

OK,

Quote

I've seen very little mention of the printer I am going to be making soon, the Delta Pi, very similar in some respects to the Rostock, but using lower cost materials, primarily in the area of the masts, and from what I have seen of the design, it should be possible to upscale without too much pain.

How big would you like it? I think that is answering your question that you raised initially, but I was also mentioning Without drawing any conclusions about your abilities, the areas that are implicated in 3D printing at this level, which is where you are inquiring.

End of involvement and responses to this thread, lectures I don't need, from you or anyone else.

---

Shore, if twas easy, we'd all be doin it

Irish Steve

Quote
charles_2008
Don't misbehave because no one spanks you online.

You have some gall saying that considering how you treated the others. Man you are a piece of work. Have fun in your little bubble.

NormandC Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>

Quote
charles_2008
> Don't misbehave because no one spanks
> you online.
>

>
> You have some gall saying that considering how you
> treated the others. Man you are a piece of work.
> Have fun in your little bubble.

"in your little bubble"!

Haha! We're so loud in our little bubble, aren't we? And you're keep getting mad at people making fun of you, on or offline!

See Makerbot? Do you understand why they have to do it? Think for at leat 10 minutes before raising your hand!

Steve,

I owe you a reply for the underlined portion in the quote box. Sorry, I did not see that, I did not wade that deep into your reply.

As far as ability, let me repeat again, you just don't know what other people are capable of. I could be Einstein pretending to pose question just for fun; or I could be the someone from Makerbot coming here to expose RepRap's weakness for exploitation.

If you like to help then answer, please, is all I politely asked.

If you don't feel like to help, I'm fine, too. Everyone is busy sometimes.

But the ones who misbehave, it's my expertise to correct. Done it a lot and good at it.

Peace!

Quote

I could be Einstein pretending to pose question just for fun; or I could be the someone from Makerbot coming here to expose RepRap's weakness for exploitation.

You're a troll all right. I gave you a relevant answer and you didn't even bother to read it properly.

I predict you'll have had zero "useful" answer in this topic by your specious reasoning. Of course in your twisted mind you'll find any reason to explain it, but none that will be the actual truth (your attitude).

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/01/2013 11:01PM by NormandC.

I counted more than half dozen of unflattering and wrong assumptions you people make regarding first time visitors.

It is ashamed. Because the way a majority of you people behave is entirely deterrent to the goal set out by the founder - mass adoption.

A potential convert comes, you people start to throw out run-around without answering directly what was asked. I would rather go with Makerbot's propriety solution instead.

Once again, you people affirm an ugly truth - That's the problem with most open source products - only a certain fringe of society can put up with.

With that, I'll end this thread.

However, I will open another thread to call on the management team of this web site to clean up the mess.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/02/2013 11:16AM by charles_2008.

Quote

With that, I'll end this thread.

However, I will open another thread to call on the management team of this web site to clean up the mess.

I think this illustrates the culture clash you are currently experiencing rather well. This thread is out of your control, you can't close it and the forum is more of a community with some who volunteer to police gross abuse and profanity rather than a company with a heirarchy and "management team".

That being said, if you intend to standardise on a reprap that those below you in your printshop network can build then one machine not mentioned so far is the mendel 90, it has reports of good support from the kit vendors and few problems in setup.

Mendel 90 development site

Cheers,
Robin.

Strangely enough, as you will see from my post count, I too am relatively new here, and joined because there are areas of this site that appeared to offer information and assistance with the sort of things I am planning to get involved with.

I too have posted questions about a number of areas related to 3D printing, having spent some time researching reading and analysing before I joined, and the answers I have received have not been thrown out or received indirect responses, and I have not received anything like the hostility that you have managed to generate by being so aggressive with your responses.

You are very correct when you state that people should not make assumptions about your skills or expertise, and most of the people that have responded have not made assumptions. I read your post, and recognised that you clearly have expertise in the area of commercial printing, and were looking to expand into an area that your customers are asking you for. That is an admirable aim. I then pointed you towards a printer that is working, but not well known at the moment, but has some good features that (in my view) improve on the original Rostock, and (more importantly) offered the potential to operate in a larger envelope than some of the other designs, which was clearly one of your selection criteria.

On the basis that it is a new printer, I then offered some suggestions of areas to be aware of, without making any assumptions about your skills, or lack thereof, to make sure that you were aware of the possible pitfalls of going down the reprap road, which most definitely is NOT as easy or as straightforward as buying from a commercial manufacturer.

You managed, in the midst of being quite hostile to some of the other posters to completely miss that, and now, you have the gall to be trying to suggest to the forum operators ways to improve this forum.

I have yet to provoke any sort of hostile respones, (other than from you), despite having to ask some relatively regular questions, and they have been answered appropriately by the other members, so somehow, you and I have managed to get a completely different response from the membership here.

So, I can only conclude that for whatever reason, your opinion that open source is not for you is probably correct, but I would respectfully suggest that the reason is not that open source as such is the problem, your expectations and attitude towards open source has influenced your thinking, and as a result, when you did not instantly get exactly the response that you wanted, that provoked a negative response, and we've seen the result of that only too clearly in the thread.

If I am paying for a software package, then yes, I expect the company I am paying to respond in short order if the problem is affecting my day to day operation, in the same way that if one of your printing machines breaks, you expect appropriate support from the supplier, at whatever level is appropriate.

In the same vein, if I am using open source products, I hope that the provider will provide support if I find a problem with that but I have absolutely no reason to demand an instant or even timely response from the provider, all I can do is hope that a response will be forthcoming in a reasonable time frame, and so far, my experience here has been good, and I have no reason to believe that the main people here will change their stance.

Unfortunately, you seem to have been able in a very short time period to stir up considerable hostility, which I respectfully suggest is more down to your attitude and manner than to the nature of the responses.

On that basis, I think you have indeed made the right decision about Reprap, but, respectfully, for the wrong reasons.

I wish you well in your search for a method to expand and improve your business services.

Best regrds




charles_2008 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I counted more than half dozen of unflattering and
> wrong assumptions you people make regarding first
> time visitors.
>
> It is ashamed. Because the way a majority of you
> people behave is entirely deterrent to the goal
> set out by the founder - mass adoption.
>
> A potential convert comes, you people start to
> throw out run-around without answering directly
> what was asked. I would rather go with Makerbot's
> propriety solution instead.
>
> Once again, you people affirm an ugly truth -
> That's the problem with most open source products
> - only a certain fringe of society can put up
> with.
>
> With that, I'll end this thread.
>
> However, I will open another thread to call on the
> management team of this web site to clean up the
> mess.

---

Shore, if twas easy, we'd all be doin it

Irish Steve

Since charles_2008 obviously does not have English as his mother tongue his tone may be more belligerent than he intends, and he may be reading hostility is some replies that simply is not there.

Also the fact that his early posts were of the form: I want to buy a car, which one should I buy. And know I don't want to have to read anything - just tell me . . . Just doesn't go over very well.

Good Luck to you.

---

Bob Morrison
Wörth am Rhein, Germany
"Luke, use the source!"
BLOG - PHOTOS - Thingiverse

Bob,

English is not my mother tongue. And I'm sure there is a great number of people here for which English is a second language. Yet, most of these people exchange fine with others. I'm used to deal with people with a lacking command of English in other forums where I have thousands of posts. And in all those years I have *never* met any one who has shown our infamous friend's attitude right from the start.

In response I've been rude to him, thrown him insults, and for that I am unapologetic, because that's what he deserves. Someone who does not show respect to others should not expect any in return.